Blogasbord Snack:

Never Abandoned -- This beautiful account of love for an orphan made me cry.

Knowledge as Submission -- Andree Seu at World Magazine clearly shows that knowing God must result in trusting Him. "We 'submit' to our claim that we know that our mechanic has changed the oil; we do that by paying him and driving off 10 hours to Michigan. Not dissimilarly, we 'submit' to our claim that we know God by living as though His promises are true and will hold us up."  I've never heard it explained so clearly before.

In other words, when we fight against trusting God in times of trial, we're basically saying "I don't really know You. I don't know you well enough to trust You."

Why Do We Let Them Dress Like That? -- If WSJ mom-writers are asking culture questions like this, then shame on Christian moms who haven't been.

South Dakota Abortion Law -- The NY Times clearly doesn't like the restrictions of this law, but I think it's wonderful that lawmakers are finally taking the deaths of the babies, and the abuse of the young women, seriously. I'm sick of our culture thinking of abortion doctors as heroes.

If the bees were here ...

Adam is preparing his hives. The bees will be here in 1 1/2 weeks. Don't they look pretty up on their little hill?
The three with little roofs are called Warre hives; Adam made them himself. The other one is called a Langstroth hive.

If the bees were here already, they'd be enjoying the blooms we have now.

Julia is naming the hives. They are: Leprechaun, Sasquatch, Dragon and Dwarf. The numbering system is to help Adam keep track of his generations of bees. She says when Adam makes two more, they'll be called Goblin and Hobbit. Can you tell we're just a bit into fantasy stories in our house? Good grief!

Our Canadian plum tree is in glorious bloom. I bet the bees would like that.

I love the silver blossoms against the pale blue sky.

Our neighbors (who already have generous chickens and ducks) just bought some more of both! Here's one of the adorable ducklings.

Our pussywillow tree is all gone to seed now, and is losing its pollen. At least, I think it's pussywillow; if anyone knows differently, please let me know!

John Keats -- His Legacy

I'm a sneaky teacher. Early in our unit on the Romantic poets, I had Anna watch Bright Star, a movie about John Keats and the woman he loved, Fanny Brawne. A compelling, warm, sad story, Anna was caught in their lives. Like I said, I'm sneaky.

Later, I pulled out a huge red book. (I mentioned it here.) Prose of the British Romantic Movement -- I put it in her lap and asked her if it looked interesting. It's comparable in weight to a dictionary, and about as fun inside. She opened it and sighed. Prose. A book of essays. Ick.

Then I told her that the book also contained John Keats's letters to Fanny Brawne, and her eyes lit up. Then I read her some passages from his letters, full of passion, jealousy, despair, adoration.  She was hooked.

To her, John Keats will never be just a boring poet from the 1800s.

"Write the softest words and kiss them that I may at least touch my lips where yours have been."

"I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death."

"I cannot exist without you -- I am forgetful of every thing but seeing you again -- my Life seems to stop there -- I see no further. You have absorbed me."

"Love is my religion -- I could die for that -- I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet -- You have ravished me away by a Power I cannot resist...."

Keats was jealous of her, and jealous of his friend, Charles Brown. "When you were in the habit of flirting with Brown you would have left off, could your own heart have felt one half the pang mine did."  He was tortured to watch her with any other man, even in light flirtation.  "I will resent my heart having been made a football." He asks, "How have you passed this month? Who have you smiled with? All this may seem savage in me. You do not feel as I do -- you do not know what it is to love ...."

Six months before his death in Italy, far from her, he wrote, "I feel it almost impossible to go to Italy -- the fact is I cannot leave you .... If I cannot live with you I will live alone .... The world is too brutal for me -- I am glad there is such a thing as the grave ...."

Later, writing to Brown, he describes his consuming passion for Fanny: "O that I could be buried near where she lives! I am afraid to write to her -- to receive a letter from her -- to see her hand writing would break my heart -- even to hear of her any how, to see her name written would be more than I can bear. My dear Brown, what am I to do? Where can I look for consolation or ease? .... this fever has never ceased wearing me out .... A person in my state of health should not have such miseries to bear."

Keats died 3 months later.

This is his death mask.

Keats agonized that he was dying young, before he could make a permanent literary mark on the world. 

"When I have fears that I may cease to be

Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,

Before high-piled books, in charactery,

Hold like rich garners the full-ripened grain ....."

Keats envisions a library, full of the books of poetry he longs to write. The library is a room of silos, full of the poetic harvest he's reaped from his mind. What an image!  But it was a vision he would not accomplish.

"'If I should die,' said I to myself, 'I have left no immortal work behind me -- nothing to make my friends proud of my memory -- but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.'"

Oh, if he only knew how much he has been remembered! He is regarded as perhaps the finest of the Romantic poets. He died at age 26.  Wordsworth wrote nothing of importance until he was 27. If Keats had had another decade? Who knows.

Supper:

At Aldi grocery store today, Adam saw a frozen gyro kit.  "Ugh," I thought. "I can't believe my husband is buying supper in a box!"
But the gyros were actually very good. We added onion and lettuce. The meat was good, the cucumber sauce was yummy, and even the pitas were fine.

Sorry to show you an eaten portion, but I wanted you to see the meat -- it's lamb.

Strawberries were on sale for $1/box, and I mentioned to Adam that Anna had asked what crepes were. So Adam made crepes for our dessert.

Here's the recipe for the batter (from Cooking at Home, by Jacques Pepin and Julia Child):

1 cupe flour
2 large eggs
1 egg yolk
3/4 cup milk
1/3 cup melted butter
2 tbls sugar
large pinch of salt
3/4 cup water

Use a blender to make a smooth batter. The pan should be at moderate heat. Adam used a pan with a sloping side, which is helpful when flipping them. Brush the pan with butter. It should be non-stick. Cook each crepe over high heat for 45 seconds - 1 minute, until lightly browned. They should look a little like beige lace. Cook on the second side for 30-45 seconds. Cool on a wire rack. They will be delicate, but will become more sturdy as they cool. Allow to cool to room temperature before using. You can freeze them also. Yield: 12-15 crepes.

Heavy whipping cream with some softened cream cheese & sugar:

These were SO good.

Adam made crepe mountains.

For Jenny: Of Wrinkled Shirts

Do you spend time wondering what God thinks of you?

These days, churches, pastors and self-help gurus tell you that God loves you, loves you in spite of all your ugly sins, accepts you just the way you are, accepts your awkward crayon drawings and slaps them proudly on his refrigerator in the sky. You are his daughter, and that makes you a princess.

And that’s all true.

But if that’s all true, then why does God allow pain in your life?

The end of Peter’s first epistle is full of instructions to his readers of how to cope with burning trials – the fire of persecution. These trials are there to refine them, to improve them. The fiery trials are for their good. They make Christians ready for heaven. Our trials make us ready for heaven too.

My friend Jenny told me recently that we are like wrinkled shirts – we are clean, we are dried, but we are thoroughly unfit for wear. Even the most beautiful garment (or heavenly princess) is not really presentable until the wrinkles are gone.

 

Is God ironing out your wrinkles? Does it hurt? How do you think your shirt feels, under the heat? Can it see what lovely improvements you’re making to it? The flat placket and the immaculate creases? Just think – the shirt will never get a chance to see itself from a distance. It has no sense of perspective on its own fiery torture.

Worse yet, all the pain it’s undergoing is only to serve as an adornment on another.  The shirt doesn’t get to walk around the town square alone, showing itself off. Its only job is to make you look good!

Poor shirt!

And then, when it’s dirty, it has to go through the whole process, all over again. And again. And again. Hot irons and sizzling cotton. Ouch!

 

Do you ever feel like that shirt, under God’s hot iron?

You are a heavenly princess. But God has plans for you. You have princess training to go through. And it’s gonna hurt sometimes.

"Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!" Ps. 27:14

Lemon Cloud Pie

Or:  All-Out War in the Kitchen!!
I mean, how much trouble can one recipe be? (Or, conversely, now stupid can one cook be, hmmm?)

So, back on Valentine's Day, I saw this recipe over on Gumbo Lily's blog. Scroll down past the chickens and grandbabies. It looked divine. I said to myself, "Self, we're gonna make that pie."
Eventually, I remembered to buy lemons and cream at the grocery. Two weeks later (today), I made it.
I took Gumbo Lily into the kitchen with me :)

I decided to make the filling first, and worry about the pie crust later. (first of many mistakes...)
Here, I gently whisked 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 3 Tbsp cornstarch, 1/3 cup lemon juice, and 2 egg yolks, in a saucepan. I turned for mere moments ...

Mere moments, I say! ...

to the sink, to scrub the wax off the lemons ...

And the mixture was boiling (which was nice, because it's supposed to). But I hadn't really, fully, um, mixed in the eggs. So there were little wisps of egg floating around in my lemon custard. Sigh. Lemon Egg Drop Soup, anyone?

My professional household chef was standing at my elbow.  He said, "You can fix that by putting it in the blender."  My self said, "Ugh. Me too lazy."
Then I ran my finger through the mixture, removing a piece of egg. Yeah, the blender came out, and it was helpful.

After its experience in the blender, however, the mixture was very airy, but still warm, and I added 4 oz. of cream cheese, and 2 tsp. of lemon zest. (At that point I realized I'd only need 2 tsp of lemon zest, not two whole lemons, which is what I'd bought at the store. So now I have a whole, unused lemon, and I have a nagging OCD tendency to feel obligated to make yet another lemon pie, just to use said lemon. I will ignore this little, niggling voice.

I left the lemon custard mixture to cool at last, and turned to the easy, predictable part -- the pie crust. I like the one I use for my Apple Pandowdy. It's almost fun. But my brain was temporarily disengaged. I tried to press it out by hand into the pie dish, without cooling it or rolling it. I went and took a dementia pill (or too), and came back to my pie crust. And I realized that, once the crust was baked, it would have to cool completely, before I could put the filling in it. This was turning into an all-day cooking event. I put the pie dough in the freezer, the filling in the frig, and went and sat on the couch.

Later, after watching a dozen videos of Japan's devastation and reading all about Libya, I rolled out the dough and popped it in the oven. When I checked on it, I discovered the sides were falling! And I remembered I'd done this before, with this same crust recipe! Argh! But who am I to be picky about crust? I'm all about flavor. Only Adam cares about how the food looks.  If it's ugly food, I just close my eyes when I eat it.

Intent on not burning the crust, I took it out soon.  Too soon. Later, when it was cooled, I realized it really wasn't cooked all the way.

So, you guessed it! I turned the oven back on, put it back, and finished it off:

All that trouble for that ugly thing!

At least it was cool enough to lift out onto a cooling rack. Later, I plopped the filling in.  It will have to cool in the frig for three hours at least.

Do NOT pray to God for patience.  He's liable to tell you to cook this recipe.

And then I remembered what I'd forgotten to do today:  bake 2 loaves of bread.  Now that I'm done with this post, I'm back into the kitchen. I hope my brain is still working.

Why I Don't Clean:

Alright, that's an overstatement. But it's true that I am not a frenetic house-keeper. My mother calls her cleaning style "a lick and a promise." Most of my house is pretty presentable, most of the time. The kids' rooms are horrid, as is their bathroom much of the time. My bedroom? Dusty and cluttered. Here's my vanity, in need of attention. Actually, when I took this photo, the cleaning had already begun.

Just in case you didn't know what I meant by dusty:

I dusted every Saturday during my teen years: living room, dining room, den. I think I got dusted out.
I cleaned the perfume bottles that I rarely use.

In the drawers, I found items I've kept. There were many papers like this, from the kids when they were little:

I found a stack of Christmas photo-cards from friends near and far. This was quite a few years ago. One couple had no kids yet, but had 2 dogs. Another had 2 daughters graduating; now the younger one is married. One family has since lost their dear grandma. Another has since been ravaged by divorce. Another beset by illness.  Missionary friends had both daughters home then. Almost all have kids who've flown the home nest. These photos clutter the frig when I receive them. Then they litter drawers for a few years. But I'm glad I kept them -- it's been long enough now that lives have changed. We've all changed.

I have a stack of boxes for keepsakes and jewelry. This little box was given to me by my oldest brother's girlfriend. That was probably 30 years ago.

In it, I keep the rose pedals Adam has given me over the years. I think that little bag of bird seed is from our wedding reception.

The largest box was my great-grandmother's. The watch face was hers too, and the watch necklace. My mother gave me all these, and the lovely cameo in the bag -- I think that was her grandma's too.

Cleaning like this is not really cleaning.  It's remembering. Perhaps that's why I put it off -- because I know it will take hours. But it's a good thing to do, don't you think?

The vanity, by the way, was my mother's when she was a little girl. It's falling apart (again), but I love it.